The vast majority of law-school graduates carry debt loads that exceed their initial earnings, new federal data shows, the latest sign a law degree isn’t a sure path to immediate financial success.
Median earnings a year after graduation topped the federal-loan figure for graduates from just 11 of about 200 law schools for which the U.S. Department of Education released data. The favorable ratios were largely for elite private institutions—including Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Northwestern...
Get the government out of student loans. Let them fail. Allow bankruptcy on them.
They're not practicing law--they're engaging in politics.
Pretty simple, really. Oversupply of attorneys. Now if people will take the hint and fewer attend, we will all be better off.
Sorry, but I do not feel sorry for attorneys. All my attorney friends are doing just fine!
It took ten years for most of us to pay off our loans. Stop whining snowflake
supply and demand. nuff said.
jcdevereaux1 JonYe_West_ askbeez07 IoannesMorgan
I’d considered becoming lawyer, was going to law school tours my junior year, what I found weird was a bunch of them gave presentations on earning potential as lawyer (I.e., mean compensation, etc.) It appeared pyramid scheme like
Cancel all student debt.
Lawyers' value is going down due to the new shift of creative thinking capital stock rising in the fast paced techno driven global marketplace.
It's a total racket.
The latest sign a law degree doesn’t pay off quickly: Graduates from just 11 law schools have first-year earnings that surpass their federal loans
😢
Swimming in debt!? Most are being forgiven by the law or are they swimming back to mommy and daddy? ♀️
so play poker or work at bridgewater with your Law Degree ? haha
You’ve got to be kidding me? You assess the value of the investment based on the first year of salary!! Seriously? Can we use some logic and rationality!!!
Not healthy. Especially in regards to the fact that lawyers must defend their clients’ interests and not their own.
Wouldn't that just be a sign of an over-saturated market?
PenguinSix Measuring “first year” seems a little aggressive to me - not many professions pay that well
First education will take all their money and require more in future. When graduated healthcare will put em in an lifetime debt from the stress related illness that has build up. Meanwhile taxation has been on the sideline all the time. Welcome to America.
The US is destroying itself by seeing education as a commodity rather than a public good. Debt isn’t a problem just for lawyers. It affects everyone trying to pursue a profession for which school is necessary.
Plus, you can’t even get an easy conviction anymore. Case in point, Elon Musk.
Worry not. Most will become “expert” guests on CNN for a fee.
That’s probably true of most college grads. I always told my students, investigate what jobs are available and what do they pay after 4 yrs college before declaring major!
That’s in part because the market is full already
Seriously? How is this news? Name a profession that pays more the first year than all of your student debt. 🤦♂️
Judging from the pic, mostly orientals, some white guys?
And they are all on Trump's payroll, I mean your taxes.
What kind of outrageous standard is that?!
Yeah? So what? So did my school loans and guess what? I paid em off....
Legal indentured servitude. .....res. ipsa..loquitor.....
What is this propaganda BS? Is the Wall Street Journal trying to deter people from attending law school because of the inability to pay off their student loans in the first year? Well, NO SHIT! Can anyone say they make enough one year removed from any institution to do that?
That is so weird. Maybe they're all choosing the wrong field. I remember years ago I put my lawyers son thru law school when I got a divorce. He's doing great now. He's got no debt. I'm very proud. You would think he'd send a card around Christmas though. Nothin !
There is one way to describe it to many lawyers
New lawyers are swimming in debt.😵😢🥴😥
Plot of a famous John grisham novel- The rooster bar....do read!! Same situation of loans of law students..
Accounting firms are full of them.
Turn out the lights....🇺🇸
J.D is a waste of money...
Well, we better just start suing the shit out of everybody!
Good. We need fewer lawyers.
There are many ways to get an education, some students waste tons of money that they don't have, this means borrowing, so after school, these students who have chosen improperly must face the music, plain and simple
That’s been true in medicine for as long as I know
You want to make a lot of money? Auto body repair.
I would buy this if the curriculum was moth bite studies. In this field you chase ambulance for a while. Grads today have entitlement embedded. Even if the debt was zero. There will be generational disaster ahead. [ THEY ] haven't been prepared to make something out of nothing!
Play of karmic effects and/or Newton's third law of motion! Lies have their incorrigible destiny!
Ridiculous posting. There is no magic that guarantees a law school grad a great salary. It depends on the quality of the school, the work ethic of the grad and his or her abilities. Just like most other professions.
This is a simple case of supply/demand. But because the government guarantees student loans the price of a law degree increases as the demand & pay for lawyers decreases. Yet these young kids go get loans anyway because they have been told they have to go to college. GetATrade
There is a nationwide glut in the law profession. Only the top grades make it big.
There are too many law schools producing too many lawyers. I’ve known people who graduated bottom tier law schools, pass the bar and end up working in retail jobs because firms won’t hire them. This has been going on for years.
Maybe only the law students who are being sponsored by a law firm should be admitted into law school. Let the law firms pay for their education and not the tax payers
It’s almost as if they’ve determined that over the course of their careers the initial investment will be recouped and they will acquire a sufficient amount of wealth to warrant the effort.
Related: the cost of law school is increasing at a ridiculous rate, and disproportionately to starting salaries.
They had better not assume they’ll get law jobs either. Much of the grunt work new lawyers do will be done increasingly by Artificial Intelligence over the next 10 years. They should approach their careers away from the normal law track as underlabourers at law firms!
Money printed out of thin air but paid back at interest. It's wrong. Very.
There are too many lawyers. Not that hard to explain.
That's still probably higher than average across all higher education. Student loans are a scam anyway. I graduated college in '05 and am STILL paying off my loans. I should be clear by 2022 🙄
Those poor lawyers.
Not just new lawyers, old ones also. We complicate things to much which causes a need for lawyers.